Goodbye, Killer

Ashmont; 2010

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In a 2008 Pitchfork interview, Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman cited the Pernice Brothers' debut Overcome by Happiness as a record that never got its due. He was right. Joe Pernice had already established himself as a talented writer with the Scud Mountain Boys, and the shift from country to tastefully orchestrated power-pop only further focused and highlighted his skills. Alas, like many writers in that field, it was easy to take his talents for granted, and after several albums that incorporated fresh elements of 1980s college rock and AM pop, it was hard not to secretly hope for something, well, more.

Maybe Pernice was secretly hoping for something more, too-- after the band's lush 2006 Live a Little he took some time off to write a novel (It Feels So Good When I Stop), record a soundtrack of covers for said novel, and hit the road as part of a solo tour/author tour combo package. Four years is by far the longest gap between Pernice Brothers records, but the economical 10 songs and 32 minutes of Goodbye, Killer don't find Pernice doing anything more than what he's done in that past: craft polished pop nuggets redolent of several decades of pop nuggets.

Whether that's enough to appeal beyond Pernice's established base is irrelevant (the press notes joke Pernice established his indie imprint Ashmont Records because he and his manager "were as capable of not selling many records as anyone"). More pertinent to that base is the pared-down nature of these tracks compared to past exercises, often filled out by busy harmonies and sweeping strings. Here most of the music is performed by a quartet led by Pernice and featuring his brother Bob, power-pop lifer Ric Menck, and guitarist James Walbourne (who currently does double duty in the Pretenders).

At this point Pernice's way with a melody and sympathetic arrangement is well known, his singing sharp and well-phrased (despite any number of awkward references and extra syllables he slips in). What's missing is a sense of urgency, a sense of creative compulsion driving these compositions. Songs such as "Something for You", the lovely but melancholy "Bechamel", and the deceptively peppy "The Great Depression" are rich with echoes of Dylan, the Beatles, and other building blocks of, well, everything, but there's nothing new brought to the table. When Pernice brings back the country signifiers on the title track or "Newport News", it's not clear just what's being signified other than a stylistic affectation.

"Please don't think I'm cruel," sings Pernice on "The Loving Kind", "I've been through this too many times to bullshit you." The Pernice Brothers are indubitably the loving kind-- that is, the kind of band you could love-- and as Pernice sings earlier on "We Love the Stage" with a what-can-you-do shrug, "love is love." The guy knows how to write songs, the guy knows how to make records. The guy knows how to make records you want to love. What's missing here, though, is that arrow through the heart moment where admiration and affection turns into adoration. The downside to anyone making it look so easy is that people may eventually agree before respectfully moving on.